Cuts to Arts Shows Lack of Foresight, Hindsight, and Sight

Certainly when I heard about Mount Royal University cutting funding for their Arts programs, nobody should be shocked that I was upset.  It took a bit of thinking after my last letter to really discern the big picture, though.

We should have seen this coming.  We should have been fighting against it long before it happened.  Of course, hindsight being 20/20, I shake my head in disappointment at myself for not seeing it before.

Between this article from a 2004 edition of U of C's Gauntlet, the comments from Associate Professor Bill Bunn in this CBC News report, and the MRU's 2012-2017 Academic Plan (check out page 8, it becomes obvious there), the pieces of the puzzle fall into place to show the impending demise of the school's Arts programs.  Arts Advocates should have seen it coming.  They (we) didn't because we blindly believed every corner of Alberta also believed in the Arts.  Now we are staring down the barrel of the gun, seeing the beginnings of the demise of Arts in Alberta.

No matter the warnings, Mount Royal pushed forward, with it's main argument being reputation.  Apparently a degree at a really great college is still only a degree at a college, and therefore graduates cannot compete in the marketplace.  Forget the fact that the programs the college built its reputation on became tertiary the second they adopted the name "University".

Basically, for the sake of a name, Mount Royal has turned its back on its past.  But it's worse than that.  As a result of the finite funding Cooney warned us about, these diploma programs have received the axe, and the wonderful diversity we saw in Calgary's post-secondary institutions got sliced with it.

Certainly the cuts are the fault of mismanagement of our province's funding by the PC government.  But that is not the only place the fault lies.  Mount Royal got itself so pidgeon-holed on the idea of a namesake lending value to their programs that it forgot about the value of those programs.  The PC government has mechanics in place to prevent the loss of those programs, but instead for the sake of having five universities in the province, it still let it happen anyway.

Having five universities does not make Alberta an educational leader.  It makes Alberta an educational elitist.  We claim to have the best schools at any level.  Thanks to these most recent cuts, and the pidgeon-mindedness of MRU and any other school considering cutting programs, we can't claim that any more.  We may be able to claim the best at the highest level, but we leave all else behind.

Alberta should not be considered great because we have the most highly educated people.  Alberta should be great because we respect all people with all interests and all abilities, and we work hard to help each one achieve success and prosperity.  In a PC Alberta, where funding is cut to programs that would open up that diverse prosperity because the government cannot manage their books, we will not see that wholly inclusive Alberta.

I don't see MRU changing their mind, without changing years of their priorities.  I don't see the PC's changing their tactics to our finances either.  So what are we going to do to ensure the diversity of education in our province is preserved?

Well, one thing we can do is find someone else to manage the province's books in 2016.

The other is to help schools like MRU understand how important the Arts are by showing up to every performance the school has in support of it.  The next concert is Mount Royal Kantorei on Saturday, May 4 at 7:30 PM.  Show up, and teach MRU how important the Arts are to Albertans.